365 Days
by melodiewrites
Summary: GoGo Tomago knows Tadashi Hamada for 365 days before he is ripped from her life. Tadashi/GoGo. GoGo-centric. ONESHOT.


**Disclaimer**: All recognizable characters and places belong to Disney and/or Marvel.

**A/N:** One last story before exams hit! First time writing for this fandom/pairing, so I'd love some feedback!

* * *

_Day 1_

Leiko Tanaka has always had a need for speed, and it's because of it that she gets accepted into the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology – she's accepted for a bike that she's been working on as of late, one that she's hoping will be the fastest ever invented. But it's really all thanks to her friend Honey, because Honey's the one who, after hearing about her project, suggests auditioning for SFIT.

That's where she meets him. Professor Callaghan introduces him, _Tadashi Hamada_, to her as his best student and she wants to laugh at the blush that rises on his cheeks. Instead, she snaps her gum and gives him an unimpressed look before following Callaghan to see the next student's project.

Their relationship isn't one of those love-at-first-sight, sparks-fly kind of things; they don't start off as _anything_ resembling even friendship, really. He is just one of the "other people" in the lab, one of Honey Lemon's friends – maybe even her boyfriend – the same as Fred and Wasabi, because she likes to keep to herself. Honey Lemon is as far as she wants to expand her social circle.

So for a while, they exist completely independent of one another – there's Tadashi and there's Leiko, but never Tadashi and Leiko together. And she thinks that suits her just fine, because she likes the rush and adrenaline, and as far as she's concerned, having friends will only slow her down.

**-x-**

_Day 65_

It isn't until two months after she starts going to SFIT that she really starts getting to _know_ all of Honey Lemon's friends Of course, this isn't because she _wants _to; it's more because Honey Lemon _forces _her to.

"Unnecessary, Honey," she mutters curtly as Honey Lemon rushes her along towards her living room. She tugs uncomfortably at the pair of jean shorts that Honey forced her into wearing, missing her athletic attire more and more every second. She wouldn't have minded so much (okay, she would still have minded, but. But, not _as _much) if Honey had chosen _any_ other day to do this. But she just isn't up for it, not today of all days.

"They'll _love_ you, Leiko," Honey Lemon exclaims excitedly. "Just – you know, they're good people. They might be a little loud and rowdy. But!" she interjects when Leiko gives her a dry look. "But they're good people; trust me, you'll like having them around. _Especially_ Tadashi."

"Honey, please – I know you li –"

"I baked your favourite cookies!" Honey interrupts her mid-sentence, a sweet, innocent smile on her face.

Leiko raises an eyebrow; it's no secret that Honey Lemon is probably the best baker in their lab, what with her supplying baked goods for the lab members every other day, but she never would have expected Honey of all people to _bribe_ her with them.

"Besides, you need to get out more and have some fun once in a while! You can't just hole yourself up in the lab every day. You're already here anyways, so you might as well just take the time and enjoy yourself." With that, Honey Lemon pushes her into the living room, where the others are waiting.

Of all the things that Leiko is expecting this movie night to be, it certainly isn't... _this_. Whatever _this_ is. She stares up in horror at the banner that reads, _Happy Birthday, __Leiko__ GoGo!_ There's a table full of food (and is that a _cake?_) and drinks under the banner, and balloons _everywhere, _in different shades of blue and yellow and red that make her eyes hurt. She whips around to demand an explanation from Honey Lemon, who is standing in the doorway of her living room, smiling sheepishly at her. "How in hell –"

"Oh, Leiko, why didn't you ever tell me when your birthday was? We could have celebrated together! I could have baked you a cake! How did I not know that it was your birthday after all these years of being you're friend?"

"Honey –" she tries to interrupt the girl before she can start on one of those long-winded monologues that she's famous for.

"Did you spend your birthday alone every year?"

"Honey –" she tries again.

"Because –"

"Honey Lemon," Tadashi interrupts her speech by placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. "I think she gets the point. This might be a bit much for a first-time celebration, don't you think?" He gives her a soft, apologetic look, a look that says he understands if she doesn't want to celebrate her birthday with them, that he understands _why_.

And she _hates_ him for it, because _what the hell does he know_? He's just some kid who works in the same lab as her and happens to be one of her best friend's best friends.

"But – she – I mean – I didn't get a chance to celebrate with her any of the three years that I've known her, and I thought maybe I would try to make it up to her by making this year _extra _special, because what kind of friend am I? I've known her for _three years_ and not once did I ask about her birthday."

Leiko reaches over and pulls Honey into a hug in one of her rare displays of affection and mentally berates herself for being so affected by Honey's sadness.

"Its fine, Honey," she mutters as she awkwardly pats the taller girl's back. "Really. I – I think it's, um, really sweet. I appreciate it." She forces herself to give Honey Lemon the most genuine smile she can manage in the given situation.

Honey Lemon turns to her with what she thinks has to be the brightest smile that she's _ever _seen, and suddenly, she feels like she's going to regret saying anything at all.

"Awesome!" she exclaims, grabbing Leiko's arm and pushing her onto the couch between Fred and Wasabi. "C'mon, c'mon, sit, sit. Have some food." She shoves a plate full of chicken wings, chips and cookies onto Leiko's lap before going to put a DVD into the player.

Her curiosity gets the better of her and the words "who the hell is GoGo?" slip out of her mouth before she can stop them.

Honey Lemon pauses on her way back to the couch and giggles nervously. "Um…"

"_You're_ GoGo, obviously." Fred beams at her, happily oblivious to the potentially murderous girl sitting next to him. "It's my nickname for you! All my friends have one."

"Listen, you nitwit –" she snarls angrily.

"O-_kay_," Honey Lemon interrupts her before she can start a full-blown argument with her friends. She pulls Fred away from Leiko before she can do some permanent damage to his face, and pushes Tadashi onto the couch next to her. "Let's not fight, okay? We don't want to ruin Leiko's birthday for her." She gives Leiko an apologetic look as she takes a seat on Tadashi's other side.

She takes a deep breath to calm herself and settles comfortably onto the couch. _You're here already; you might as well enjoy it,_ she mentally coaches herself.

As it turns out, Honey Lemon's group of friends is noisy and overly excitable – not that _that_ surprises her, considering how excitable Honey is. But what _does_ surprise her is that she finds that she doesn't mind it; in fact, she quite enjoys watching Honey and Fred chatter animatedly about god knows what, listening to their laughter, eating warm food with _people_, instead of with a television.

**-x-**

Somehow, she ends up spending the next weekend with them, and the weekend after that, and the one after that, doing all sorts of things that she'd never thought about doing – having lunch at the local ramen stand down the street, going to the aquarium, visiting Tadashi's parents' graves (she feels like she's intruding, but they immediately dismiss her when she suggests that she not tag along for this particular trip; after all, she's their friend too), and even playing hide-and-seek in lab (until Callaghan, who catches Fred running down the halls, stops them before they can do any real damage to the expensive equipment in the lab).

Suddenly, none of them are _just people in the lab_ to her – they're her _friends_, people she actually _wants _to spend time with. And as ridiculous as Fred is, as much as Wasabi's constant need to organize everything grates on her nerves, and as much as Tadashi's happy-go-lucky attitude sometimes annoys her, deep down, she knows that these little quirk are what make them who they are. Even Fred's silly nickname eventually starts to grow on her. _GoGo_. She thinks it seems appropriate, given that she's always "on the go", as Honey Lemon describes it.

And no matter how loud and obnoxious they can be, or how much they might irritate her, she will forever be grateful to Honey for bringing these people into her life, because for all her snarky comments and hard exterior, these people somehow become her _family_, and she would never trade that for the world.

**-x-**

_Day 92_

It's three in the morning on a Monday night, but she's still in the lab because she _really_ needs to get her bike to start working. She tells herself that it will only be a short 30-minute nap as she closes her eyes, her exhaustion finally taking over. Somehow, though, she ends up sleeping through the night, and by the time she comes to, sunlight is already filtering in through the window.

She wakes up on a desk (she's not sure how she ended up on a _desk_, because she's almost certain that she just flung herself into the nearest chair and dozed off the night before) with a cardigan draped over her body, and a tumbler of coffee and a croissant from the Lucky Cat Café on the table next to her. She holds the cardigan up between her index finger and thumb, eyeing it warily. It's too big to be _hers_, that's for sure, and she doesn't even _wear _cardigans – that's more Honey's style. She glances around the lab, looking to see if anybody came in this morning while she was still asleep, but it's still early and nobody has arrived yet.

In her confused state, without really thinking about what she's doing, she rolls off the desk like she would roll off her bed in her apartment, and _shit_, that desk ends up being taller than she expected. She lets out a small scream of surprise as her butt hits the ground. "Oh, that was a terrible idea," she mutters to herself as she stares dazedly up at the ceiling from her spot on the floor. She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to block out the sunlight. It's the first time the robotics lab has ever been this quiet in the three months that she's been attending the school, and she lays there for a long moment, relishing the quietness.

"Need a hand?" an amused voice interrupts the silence.

She forces her eyes open to see Tadashi's face hovering above her, staring down at her. He doesn't even bother to hide his amusement. "No," she mutters. But she grabs his hand when he offers it anyways, and lets him help her up. "Thanks."

"There's desks and chairs _everywhere_ and you chose to sleep on the _floor_?" he asks in disbelief. "You're going to hurt your back one day."

"I fell off the desk," she says flatly as she dusts her pants off and attempts to straighten her bedhead.

"No kidding," he says, sounding very much like he's trying to hold back his laughter – which he probably is, but she figures that he's just too nice to actually tease her about it. Before she can say anything about it though, he's already heading towards his part of the lab, waving at her over his shoulder as he goes.

She shrugs and picks up the tumbler of coffee which, surprisingly, is still kind of warm. She raises her eyebrows when she sees a note taped to the table underneath. Gingerly, she rips the paper off the table and reads it.

_I refilled your tumbler for you. Hopefully it'll still be warm by the time you wake up (if you even wake up before tomorrow morning; you look dead asleep right now __and it's kind of cute__) and judging by the looks of it, you probably shouldn't be up any time soon anyways; you look like you _really_ need the sleep. The croissant is there (and may need some reheating) if you get hungry. Rest up and restore your energy! –T.H._

She squints at the phrase that's been scribbled out several times, trying to see what was originally written, to no avail. She shrugs, giving up, as she crumples the message into a ball and tosses it into the bin with her garbage wheels, before storming into his lab where she finds him working on something that looks like a _giant marshmallow_. "Hey," she calls, trying to get his attention.

"Oh, hey." He turns around, screwdriver still in his hand and a smudge of grease on his left cheek. "Did you need something?"

She holds the croissant and the tumbler of coffee out towards him. "You don't need to baby me, you know. I can take care of myself."

He pauses. "I know." When she doesn't say anything further, he says, "You looked like you needed it."

She frowns at him, brows furrowed. "If I needed something, I would have gone and got it myself."

"Sure you would," he responds, sounding like he doesn't believe her at all. "I have a younger brother; worrying is like a second nature to me."

"I don't need you to worry about me." She scowls impatiently at him. "Here, just take your stupid croissant back. I would give you back the coffee too, but it's in my tumbler." She shoves the bag with the croissant at him.

He gently pushes her hand away. "Like I said, you looked like you needed the energy; you still look like it, to be honest. Besides, I'm designing a nursing robot – if I can't be bothered to help somebody who looks like they need help, how do you expect me to build something to do it?"

She glares at him, but when he shows no sign of giving in, she huffs and mutters a short _thanks_ before leaving his work station as he calls after her to tell her to go home and get some sleep.

She ignores him, hoping that if she doesn't give him a reaction, he'll stop caring.

**-x-**

_Day 101_

The next time she takes another late night shift at the lab, the lights in Tadashi's lab are still on. She makes a trip down to the 24-hour coffee shop on campus herself in order to avoid encountering a similar situation. She hesitates at the counter, debating whether or not she should order a coffee for him as well.

Snapping her gum in annoyance, she orders two coffees and a cookie from the impatient cashier who informs her that they're out of trays, so she'll have to carry the two cups without one.

She scowls as she slowly makes her way back to the robotics lab, balancing the two cups of coffee and the cookie between her two hands. Not for the first time in her life, she wishes she was more like Honey Lemon, who always carries a purse around – at least that way, she can put the cookie away, because carrying two cups of coffee is so much easier when she's not holding a cookie too.

She nudges the door to his lab open with her foot and finds him sitting in front of the marshmallow, running an agitated hand through his hair.

"Still working this late at night?" she asks as she leans against the doorframe.

He jumps in surprise and turns toward her. "Oh, hey. I wasn't expecting anybody else to be here at this time. Why are you here this late at night?"

"Same as you. My wheels aren't working, so I need to fix a few things." She hesitates for a second, unused to situations like these that involve _giving_, before holding the cup towards him. "I brought you coffee and a cookie."

He pauses, looking up at her in surprise, and she feels her eye twitch. Is it really so shocking that she bought him a coffee?

"You didn't have to do that," he finally says.

She shrugs and puts the coffee and the cookie down on one of his work tables. "Just returning the favour."

"Well…thanks. I appreciate it." He gives her a half-smile that makes her heart speed up, but she ignores it, hoping that if she doesn't think about it, it'll eventually go away.

"Good luck with your project." She turns and leaves his lab as quickly as her legs can carry her.

**-x-**

_Day 130_

She doesn't expect him to do something like that again, but he does; midterms are coming up, and she's staying late at the lab more than she knows is healthy. He shows up again though, with coffee and a chocolate chip cookie ("Honey Lemon says it's your favourite," he declares, smiling that stupid half-smile of his). So she returns the favour the next time they stay late. And so it goes, back and forth, back and forth, leaving coffee or a small treat for each other on those late nights.

"Hey," he calls after her during her fifth delivery.

She stops in confusion on her way to the door, because _this isn't how it's supposed to go_ – she's supposed to leave the coffee there and go back to her own workstation to work on her project. She turns to face him, and the confusion must show, because he laughs.

"Why don't we share?" He gestures to the muffin she'd set down on his work table. "I think I'm in need of a break anyways," he mumbles, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

She contemplates his offer for a long minute before muttering, "Sure."

He gives her a smile big enough to rival Honey Lemon's and clears a space on one of his work tables for her to sit on. "Sorry, my chairs are all occupied at the moment," he says, gesturing towards the two chairs, which currently have boxes of parts sitting on top of them.

"S'okay." She hops onto the desk, trying to convince herself that she too needs a break and that her decision to spend a couple minutes with him has nothing to do with the way he makes her stomach feel like it's doing somersaults.

He breaks the muffin in half and hands one of the halves to her as he bites into the other half. "Do you usually go to that 24 hour café on campus?" he asks around a mouthful of muffin.

She spits her gum out into the nearby garbage can before taking a large bite of the muffin. "Nope. Their coffee sucks. Closest thing to us right now, though. And who has time to go out of their way for good coffee with all these midterms?"

"Hmm," he hums in agreement as he takes a long sip of coffee. "Where _do_ you normally go?"

"Lucky Cat Café. It's on the way to school, so I just drop by in the mornings. Good coffee. The owner is a little crazy though."

He snorts into his coffee. "My aunt owns the Lucky Cat Café –"

"Your _aunt_ is the crazy lady that runs the place?"

"She's _not_ crazy! She's just a little – overactive," he says defensively.

She gives him one of her famous _are you kidding me_ looks.

"Okay, so she's a little crazy, but she's still my aunt! And I don't think she'd appreciate you calling her crazy!"

"Sorry," she says, not sounding the least bit sorry.

"She does get called crazy a lot, though I think people intend it to be endearing, rather than offensive. Unlike you," he teases.

She rolls her eyes. "She makes good cookies," she concedes, as if being able to make good cookies makes it okay for her to be a little insane.

"_I_ make the morning batch of cookies."

"You _bake_?"

He frowns. "What's with that surprised look? Of course I bake; you pick up a few tricks when your aunt owns a café. Besides, somebody has to help with the morning rush."

"Is _that_ why you're almost always late for the first class of the morning?"

"Yes." He rubs his eyes tiredly. "But I'm not going to leave my aunt to deal with fifty annoyed and ticked off customers who just want to get their coffee, no matter how much she insists that she doesn't need my help. That's why I always try to make it back to the café before the sun rises, no matter how late I end up staying. Besides, I wouldn't trust my little brother around a coffee maker or an oven."

She snorts. "You need to stop babying your brother or he's never going to grow up."

"He doesn't need to grow up so fast," he murmurs. "He's still just a kid."

She doesn't respond, because she can recall her parents saying the exact same thing to her when she was younger.

"Ready to get back to work?" he asks instead of pursuing the topic, as he gets up from his spot on the ground.

The momentary lapse in thought disappears completely when he reminds her how much _work _she actually has left to do. In response, she mumbles something unintelligible around the lid of the coffee cup and he laughs.

"I'll take that as a 'no'. You needed this break _way_ more than I did."

She digs the palms of her hands into her eyes. "I'm going to gauge my eyes out if I have to stare at my blueprints any longer."

"Come on." He waves her over to something that looks like a red toolbox. "You can extend your break a couple more minutes; I want to show you something."

Her curiosity getting the better of her, she picks herself up off the desk and walks over to where he's kneeling. "Hmm?" She peers over his shoulders. "Wha – _ow_, Tadashi, what the _hell_?" She swats his hand away and rubs at the reddening spot on her arm where he pinched her.

He laughs. "Woman up," he quips, mimicking her words.

"I swear to god, you –"

Something that sounds an awful lot like an _inflating balloon_ interrupts her yelling and she whips around to find the source of the noise, only to find Tadashi's marshmallow…thing rising from what she previously thought was a red toolbox. "Um…Tadashi. Is that supposed to happen?"

"Hello. I am Baymax, your p-perrr –" its robotic voice states before it malfunctions and deflates.

Tadashi sighs in defeat and runs a hand through his hair.

"Was that your project?" she asks.

"It's _supposed_ to be," he mumbles tiredly. "If I could just get it to stay _on_ for more than a couple seconds, then I might actually get somewhere with it."

"It looks like a giant _marshmallow_." She chugs the rest of her coffee down and tosses her empty cup into the recycling bin in his lab.

"_He_ is supposed to be a nursing robot. Or he will be, once I fix his code. And his name's Baymax." He turns his back to her and starts to pack _Baymax_ back into his luggage.

"You _named_ the thing?" She asks in disbelief, gesturing in the general direction of his project even though she knows he can't see her.

"It makes him more personal." He shrugs as he turns back around to face her.

"If you say so." She unwraps a new piece of gum and pops it into her mouth, chewing a few times before blowing a bubble "I should probably get back to working on my bike; I actually want to fix a few things before the sun comes up. Good luck with your marshmallow."

"His name is Baymax!" he calls after her as she walks out of his lab.

**-x-**

_Day 143_

"What was that for?" she complains when a piece of croissant hits her right cheek. She watches it as it lands on the ground next to her shoe and irritably brushes the rest of the crumbs off her cheek. She frowns at the offending piece of pastry before kicking it in Tadashi's general direction. It travels a depressing two feet before coming to a stop.

"That was pathetic. And you were ignoring me, so I had to get your attention somehow."

She rolls her eyes in what she hopes comes off as annoyance, even though she's really not as bothered as she should be that he's throwing stuff at her. She vaguely wonders to herself if this is what people would consider _flirting_, but quickly shoves that thought to the back of her mind, because who on earth would want to flirt with _her_?

She rips off a chunk of her own croissant and tosses it at him, hoping to hit him on the nose, but he snags it expertly out of the air and pops it into his mouth, causing her to scowl.

He laughs. "My younger brother pulls this kind of thing all the time," he says by way of explanation. "You get used to it after a while. Food tastes so much better when it's somebody else's."

"Doesn't matter, because _you're _the one who bought it anyways." She reaches over and plucks the rest of his croissant out of his hand.

He frowns at his now empty hand and turns to pout at her. "GoGo," he whines when she takes a bite of his croissant.

She shrugs and hands the rest of it back to him, a smirk gracing her lips. "You got a bite of mine, so it's only fair. Anyways, wasn't there something you wanted to show me?"

He quickly stuffs the rest of the croissant into his mouth before she can take it again. "Mmhmm." His voice is muffled by the croissant in his mouth. "I think I've finally figured out the coding on Baymax. I was wondering if you wanted to stick around for my test run."

He's grinning at her and she can feel the corners of her lips twitching upwards to return the smile, but she covers it up by sticking a piece of gum in her mouth. "Sure." She backs away from him. "As long as you're not planning on pinching me again."

"Aw, but it worked so well," he teases, nudging her with his elbow. "But don't worry, since you were such a big baby about it last time, I added an activation switch." He picks up his board, which reads "Test #50" and then reaches up to turn Baymax on.

She hoists herself up onto his empty work table, the one he specifically keeps clear of paper and tools so that she can have a place to sit when she's in his lab, and watches as the marshmallow inflates. It looks the same as the last time she saw it, but she figures he must have made some improvements, because it doesn't deflate within two seconds.

"This is Tadashi Hamada," he says into what she supposes is a built-in camera, "and this is the fiftieth test of my robotics project." He looks up hopefully into the eyes of the marshmallow, waiting for it to do something.

"Hello, I am Baymax," it says, and when it doesn't automatically deflate, she can practically see Tadashi's eyes light up.

She raises an eyebrow, impressed, and is about to congratulate him on finally getting his project fixed, when the giant marshmallow turns away from Tadashi and makes its way over to _her._ And then proceeds to collapse on her, _without_ deflating.

"Tadashi! Your stupid marshmallow –!" She struggles to keep the oversized balloon upright so that it doesn't engulf her tiny form; she can't decide if there's been a time when being short has ever been more inconvenient.

He rushes over with the charging station and helps her pick the thing up, placing it back into its luggage.

"Okay, so maybe I still need to do a little bit of work before I can say it's finished." He rubs the back of his head sheepishly.

"A _bit_?" She gives him and incredulous look. "The thing can't even stay upright for five minutes."

"Okay, okay." He holds his hands up in defeat. "There are still a lot of things I need to fix, but I swear, I'm going to finish the thing, and he's going to help _so_ many people."

"You really are something else," she murmurs.

"That's – that's a good thing right?" he demands, his voice wavering with uncertainty.

She doesn't give him a response as she lifts her hand up in her signature two-finger salute and starts towards the door, leaving him to decide for himself whether or not "something else" is a good thing. _Although_, she thinks, _it's a very, _very_ good thing_.

**-x-**

_Day 151_

It's on another one of those late nights that she tells him about her parents and why she is so apprehensive about celebrating her birthday; it was Honey Lemon's birthday, and the gang had just gotten back from celebrating at the Lucky Cat Café – everybody else had called it a night and headed home, so it's just the two of them burning the midnight oil. Again.

She's not sure why she says anything at all, because he never asks, but she thinks it might be because she feels slightly melancholic – she tends gets this way whenever she celebrates Honey's birthday, because she never feels this way when it's _her_ birthday – or maybe her sleep-deprived state is just addling her brain-to-mouth filter.

"Do you know why I never told Honey Lemon when my birthday is?"

"No," he responds, a little too quickly. His expression is guarded, which makes her think that he isn't being entirely truthful with her and he _does_ know something, at least to some extent. Which is ridiculous, because she's never told anybody.

"Every year, on my birthday, I would just put on a dress – yes, a dress; shut up and stop laughing, you dork." She picks up one of her crumpled up blueprints and tosses it at him. When she's sure he's done, she continues, "because my parents always tried to get me to wear them, even though I always refused. And I would sit in my room in front of their picture and talk to them. I don't know, I guess I figure it might make them happy to see me actually listening to them for once. Which is stupid, because they haven't been around since I was 12." Tears prickle her eyes, but she tries her best to keep them from falling.

That causes him to sober up and to stop laughing. "Hey," he says, his voice gentle. He gets up from the floor where he'd been working on Baymax and pulls a chair up next to her. "It's not stupid. My parents passed away when I was eight, and I still talk to them like they're here; my brother was only three when it happened – he doesn't even remember them, and he still misses them.

"It doesn't matter how much time passes – there will still be days when it's going to hurt like it happened yesterday; there will always be days when you miss them. Some days you'll miss being able to talk to them, even if it's just trivial things like what you did in school, some days you'll miss the physical contact, the hugs, the reassuring touches, some days you'll just miss all of them – and that's okay. It's okay to be sad sometimes, GoGo. Being sad doesn't mean you're weak – it means you're human."

She closes her eyes and presses the palm of her hands against them; she does not need this. She does not need somebody to talk to her about her dead parents. It's been _years_ now, and she's never really felt the need to discuss it. So why does she feel the sudden urge to talk to this boy that she's known for a mere three months about it? She's known Honey Lemon for _years_ now, and she knows nothing. But Honey Lemon doesn't understand, not the way Tadashi does, at least. Because Honey Lemon is always sweet and happy, with a family filled to the brim with love. Tadashi Hamada, however, is like her – broken and bruised and put haphazardly back together – so yes, he understands.

He puts a comforting arm around her shoulders and she leans into his side, instead of shying away from him like she normally would, because the tears are starting to roll down her cheeks, and she doesn't want him to see. Her shoulders shake with each silent sob, but if he notices, he doesn't say anything, and she's grateful for it.

They're both quiet for a long moment before she pulls away, wiping away the traitorous tears with the back of her hand. She makes an attempt to return to staring at her blueprints, but she can't focus, because she can feel his eyes boring holes into the side of her head.

"Did you know? That my parents died on my birthday?" She finally asks, her voice still shaky. She glances up from the blueprints that she'd laid out on one of the desks in his lab and eyes him, gauging his reaction.

The question is sudden – she can tell he's taken aback because he jumps a little, nearly knocking over his cup of coffee. Despite his initial shock, though, his voice is steady when he says, "You never mentioned it," which doesn't really answer her question.

She pulls her knees up and rests her chin on them as she watches him, waiting for him to continue.

After a long moment, he sighs and takes off his baseball cap, running a hand through his hair. "Why would you assume that?"

"I don't know," she admits. "That day you guys threw me that surprise party or whatever it was…You gave me this sympathetic look, like you _knew_. It kind of pissed me off, to be honest, because at the time, you were just some kid that happened to be friends with Honey."

"I had a feeling that _something _had happened, but I could never be sure _what_," he confesses. "Like I said, my parents died when I was 8. Whenever I think about them, well, you had that same hollow look on your face, and I just kind of knew that you must have lost somebody."

"You really are too smart for your own good," she murmurs as she puts her papers down – it's not like she's going to be able to focus anyways, not after _that_ conversation. She looks up in surprise when he drapes his cardigan over her shoulders.

"Call it a night, GoGo," he advises. "Or at least take a nap. You won't be able to concentrate on anything in that state anyways, so you might as well call it quits and get some rest."

"Okay," she says without a fight.

"Okay?" he asks, a small smile making its way onto his face. "You're not even going to argue?"

"I'm tired," she mumbles, although she's not sure whether she means it physically or mentally – maybe she's a little bit of both.

"I'll wake you up in an hour. Here." He tugs her to him, so that her head can rest on his shoulder. "There isn't really a decent spot for you to take a nap, unfortunately, so you're going to have to make do with my shoulder."

"Make do" aren't the exact words she would use, because his shoulder is very comfortable, and though she wouldn't ever say it out loud, she could probably easily get used to sleeping like this.

"Thank you," she whispers, closing her eyes. And she isn't just thanking him for letting her use his shoulder as pillow; she's thanking him for listening to her talk about her parents, for understanding, for not telling her that the pain will eventually go away, the way that she's sure Honey Lemon would – because he's right, it never really will.

**-x-**

_Day 152_

When she awakens, her head is still on his shoulder, and sunlight is filtering in through the blinds, so she knows that he didn't wake her up like he said he would.

"You're awake."

She looks up at the sound of his voice, to find him sitting, cross-legged, next to her, with a textbook in hand.

She rubs her eyes tiredly. "Why didn't you wake me?" she demands – her form of an apology, because anybody would be hard-pressed to hear the actual words _I'm sorry_ leaving her mouth.

He seems to understand the underlying meaning though, because he smiles. "You looked too peaceful; I didn't want to wake you. Don't worry about it though. I managed to finish the readings for Professor Callaghan's class while you were asleep."

She lets out a large yawn. "Ugh," she groans, removing her head from his shoulder. "Look, about last night…"

"Don't worry." He gives her a reassuring look. "I won't say anything unless you want me to. It's your secret to tell, and I won't butt into your business."

"Thanks." She pauses. Then, in an attempt to divert the conversation away from last night's mental breakdown, she asks, "It's Saturday, isn't it? I can't believe we're at school on a weekend." She makes a face.

He laughs as he grabs his messenger bag and slings it over his shoulder, beckoning her to follow. "Come on, I'll treat you to breakfast at the Lucky Cat Café."

She stares after him for a good minute before grabbing her own bag and rushing out after him. She pushes last night's conversation to the back of her mind, feeling more at ease about her parent's death than she ever has before; talking to Tadashi really had helped. Her parents are gone, and she knows it won't ever not hurt to think about it – after all, it's been six years, and the pain still there – but at least, for now, it's just a dull ache in her chest.

**-x-**

And suddenly he's not just a friend who happens to work in the same lab as her – he's _Tadashi Hamada_, a living, breathing person, one of her best friends, maybe somebody she would even consider being with. But _no_, she thinks, shaking her head, _I don't have time for that._ And besides, she's pretty sure that Honey Lemon has a thing for him, and there's no way she is going to intrude onto her friend's territory.

But that doesn't stop her from talking to him, and sharing coffee and cake and cookies with him, and staying up late watching him work on his project, because friends do that too, right?

**-x-**

_Day 159_

"_So?_ How's Tadashi?"

GoGo is seated across from Honey Lemon at her favourite booth in the Lucky Cat Café, flipping through her blueprints for the fifteenth time, trying to find the error that's messing her wheels up, when Honey asks. The question catches her so off guard that she jumps and nearly drops all her papers. She glares at Honey as she straightens them back up and continues to meticulously go through each detail, determined to fix _some_thing.

"Hmm. Tired, probably, he's been working on that robot of his non-stop for the past couple days," she remarks distractedly without looking up.

"GoGo! That's not what I meant. You _know_ what I'm talking about."

"I don't know," she murmurs as she flips yet another page in annoyance. Only she _does_ know; she knows all too well, because his smile has a funny way of making her want to kiss it off his face. But she's not going to tell her _that_.

"Well, how are _you guys_? Has he kissed you yet?" Honey Lemon pokes her arm and gives her an imploring look. "I mean, it's been _months_ now."

"_What?! _No! What the hell, Honey?"

"…You mean you guys aren't together?" The smile on Honey's lips fades quickly, only to be replaced by a crestfallen look.

"No! I thought _you_ liked him. Or he liked you, or whatever." She takes a bite of her cookie – she's not sure whether she does it to distract herself from the horrific conversation, or just to have something to chew on because she's out of gum.

"Is _that_ why you haven't made a move yet? Because I don't, you know, like him that way. And I'm pretty sure he would have said something already if he liked me. So feel free to take him." The smile is starting to make its reappearance on Honey's face, and GoGo is pretty sure that if she doesn't put a stop to the conversation now, she'll be treading dangerous waters.

"I'm ending this conversation, Honey Lemon. Now." She gathers her notes into a neat pile before slipping them into her messenger bag. She makes a beeline for the door, but Honey grabs her arm.

"But GoGo. Come _on_. You guys are practically dating already. Why not make it official?"

"Because I don't have _time_ to be in a relationship." She tugs at her arm, but Honey's grip is firm.

"You don't have to rush everything, you know."

She sighs in defeat, knowing that she isn't going anywhere until Honey is through with her – once Honey sets her mind on something, there is no way to stop her until she gets what she wants. She slips back into her seat and picks up her cup of now-cold coffee. "There are too many things I want to do to spend time being in a relationship."

"But…there are things you want to do with him too, aren't there?"

"I can do things with him without having to do all that relationship stuff."

Honey Lemon is quiet for a long moment as she stares at GoGo with a thoughtful look on her face. "You know what I think?" She asks. Before GoGo even has a chance to respond, she continues, "I think you're scared."

GoGo flinches – of all the words people use to describe her, _scared_ certainly isn't one of them. "Like hell I am," she snaps.

"You're scared," she repeats. Despite GoGo's stern look and hard "I'm _not_ scared", she forges ahead. "You're scared because he's cutting through your rough words and hard exterior. Because he's getting to know _you_, and not the painted image that you _want _everybody to see. You're scared of letting somebody else get so close to your heart, because you're scared he's going to leave you too."

"I'm not scared, Honey." But even as the words leave her mouth, she can tell they have less conviction than before.

"I'll leave you with that," Honey says, getting up from her seat when she sees Tadashi coming down the stairs. "Tadashi promised to help me with one of my experiments, so I have to go. Think about what I said. Hey Tadashi!" she exclaims brightly, her face changing from serious to ecstatic in under two seconds.

"Hi, Honey, GoGo." He drops a pack of bubble gum onto the table in front of GoGo. "You're out of gum, right?" he asks when she gives him a questioning look.

She nods dumbly, unsure of how to react. "Thanks," she mumbles, although it comes out sounding more like a question than a statement of gratitude. She tries to ignore the meaningful look that Honey sends her way, but it's difficult when she's also nudging her leg with the toe of her heels.

"We'll see you later, GoGo." He gives her a wave as Honey Lemon gathers up her textbooks and puts them in her bag. They head out of the café, leaving her to stare at the package of gum in front of her with a million things running through her mind. Because even though she'll never admit it to anybody, maybe she _is_ scared that he's getting too close – because her personality is not exactly conducive for a functional relationship; anybody who gets to know her well enough usually doesn't stick around for long. And she happens to like having Tadashi Hamada around.

**-x-**

_Day 167_

"It's one in the morning on the Friday before spring break, and you're _still_ here?"

He looks up at the sound of her amused voice and gives her a pout. "But I'm so _close_ to finishing Baymax's coding! If I could just –"

"Tadashi," she interrupts with a roll of her eyes. "You've been saying that for the past – oh, I don't know – three weeks? You've been 'close' to finishing the thing at least five times since I started attending SFIT. I think you need to cut yourself some slack. Come on, time to call it a night."

He looks forlornly at the deflated robot in front of him. "GoGo, come on, let me just finish –"

Before he can finish his sentence, she reaches over and snatches his baseball cap off his head and twirls it around her finger. "Come on, Tadashi, time to go. Otherwise I'm not giving you your hat back." She slips it on her own head and starts towards the door.

"W-wait!" he calls after her.

She smirks when she hears him scrambling to gather his things. She's halfway across the lab when he catches up to her and pulls the cap off her head.

"You're cruel," he grumbles as he slips his cardigan on and follows her out of the building.

They're halfway to the Lucky Cat Café when thunder rumbles overhead and he shoots her a worried look. "Maybe we should stay at school and wait it out."

"Woman up," she says dryly. "We're already halfway to the café – going back to school would take the same amount of time as –" She abruptly stops talking when the rain starts pouring down. Hard. "You've got to be kidding me," she grunts in annoyance and gestures towards his messenger bag. "Umbrella?"

"No," he groans. "It wasn't supposed to rain today, so I didn't bring one. What about you?"

She shakes her head. "I never bring an umbrella –_ what are you doing_?" she yells when he starts tugging off his cardigan.

He holds it over his head with one hand and grabs her arm with the other, yanking her under the shield of his cardigan. "It's the only thing we've got right now. You ready to run?"

"Are you kidding me?" she shouts over another round of thunder. She doesn't get a chance to prepare herself, because he starts walking, tugging her forward with him. "Okay, okay. Stop pulling my arm before I fall!" She yanks her arm from his grip and picks up her pace to keep up with his long strides.

By the time they reach the café, their clothes – including the cardigan they used as a shield – are soaked through, and they're shivering from the cold. Breathing a huge sigh of relief, he pulls out his keys to let them both inside.

She stands outside, under the awning of the building, unsure of whether she should be stepping foot into the café when it's technically closed. "I g-gotta g-go," she manages to chatter out as she turns to leave.

"Hey." He grabs her by the collar of her t-shirt, stopping her in her tracks.

"W-what?" she demands, her teeth still chattering. She whirls back around to face him, a scowl on her face. "I'm f-freezing and I need a change of clothes. Preferably before I get sick!"

"You can stay here and wait out the storm – I'll lend you some dry clothes and we can put your wet ones in the wash. You can use Aunt Cass's shower. I'd rather you not go back out into that storm."

She sighs – he certainly does have a penchant for worrying too much. "It's f-fine. I can –"

"GoGo, seriously. You're already freezing. It's raining and dark out. _And_ you're wearing a t-shirt – you're going to catch a cold. Come on." He tugs her towards the stairs that lead up to the bedrooms.

"Your aunt –" Even as she starts arguing though, she knows it's futile – he can be just as stubborn as Honey Lemon when he wants to be.

"Is not going to mind that I let a friend stay over to wait out a storm. In fact, she would be rather annoyed if I sent you out to walk home by yourself in this weather, in the dark."

That's how they end up in his bedroom, with her standing in the doorway, water dripping from her body, and him rummaging through his closet for clothing that might be her size.

"The washroom is down the hall on the right," he informs her as he tosses her a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. "Try not to be too loud; Aunt Cass is asleep down the hall and she needs to get up early for the morning shift."

She gives him her two-fingered salute and makes her way down the hall to take a quick shower. The sweatpants won't stay up, because they're a couple sizes too big for her, but the t-shirt reaches her knees, so she figures it doesn't really matter anyways. She folds the pants back up and places them on his bed. He's not in his room and the lights downstairs are on, so she goes down, only to find him in the kitchen of the café, pouring tea leaves into two porcelain mugs.

He turns around at the sound of her footsteps and gapes. "Wow, I didn't realize you were so short."

"I swear, Hamada, I will rip your head off if you make another comment about my height," she growls as she balls up the towel and tosses it at his face.

He laughs, easily swiping it out of the air. "Kind of hard not to when my t-shirt reaches all the way down to your _knees_, short stuff."

The only warning he gets is a hard glower that would have sent a grown man running, before she launches herself at him, knocking him over in the process. She ends up straddling him, her legs around his waist to prevent him from getting up. "I might be short, but I'm still stronger than you." She smirks triumphantly at him.

He raises an eyebrow at her. "Yea? I wonder though, are you ticklish?" He almost laughs at the look of horror that washes over her face.

"Oh, no – no, no, no. No." She scrambles to get off him, but he grabs a hold of her arm and yanks her back down. "Tadashi, no –" She reaches out to grab his arms in an attempt to stop him before he can do any damage, but he's quicker than she expects.

His fingers dig mercilessly into her sides as she lets out a loud, full laugh, nothing like Honey Lemon's delicate giggles; it's something that she has always been self-conscious about, which is why she never really outright laughs. Tadashi doesn't seem to mind though, because he continues his tickle attack on her stomach.

She doesn't know how it happens exactly, but one minute they're tickling each other and laughing, and the next, he's staring at her like he's never seen her before, and she's suddenly hyperaware of the fact that she is practically sitting on his stomach, and that their faces are much too close to be considered _platonic_. And his gaze – his gaze is so intense that it sends a surge of _something_ – she can't quite put a word to the feeling because she's never felt this way before – through her.

He touches her cheek lightly with the tips of his fingers, as if testing her reaction to his not-so-platonic touch, and when she doesn't pull away, he lets his hand slide to the back of her neck and pulls her forward, touching his lips gently to hers for the briefest moment before pulling away. When she doesn't slap him or try to run away, he melds his lips with hers once more, one hand finding the small of her back and pressing her body to his and the other playing with the ends of her short hair.

GoGo has never kissed a boy before, but she's certainly heard stories from Honey Lemon. Kissing Tadashi, though, feels nothing like the fireworks that Honey described to her. No, kissing Tadashi is something else altogether – it's more like liquid warmth, slow and flowing, spreading from her chest all the way to the tips of her fingers and toes. It's definitely not fireworks, bright and explosive, but GoGo thinks this is _so_ much better.

She runs her fingers uncertainly through his hair, which is still wet from his shower, tugging on the ends. She's not sure what she's doing – after all, Tadashi is the first person to get this close to her and not leave – but she supposes she must be doing something right, because his lips begin to move more urgently against hers, and he tugs her closer, the minute distance between them disappearing altogether. He brushes his tongue across her bottom lip and she whimpers, a sound that has _never_ left her mouth before – but she doesn't have time to ponder that particular thought, because Tadashi's tongue finds hers, and her mind goes completely blank.

"GoGo," he whispers breathlessly as he pulls away. He brushes a stray lock of hair out of her face and tugs gently. "As much as I want to keep kissing you, my aunt and brother are upstairs, and I would rather not have them walk in on us like –"

"Tadashi?" A sleepy voice interrupts them.

She turns towards the source of the voice so quickly that, had she had longer hair, she probably would have given herself whiplash. Standing in the doorway of the kitchen is a boy with a messy mop of black hair, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

He yawns. "Did you just –" he stops abruptly when he notices the compromising situation that his brother is in. He opens and closes his mouth like a fish before letting out an embarrassed squeak and running back up the stairs with an "Ew, Tadashi! I'm going to pretend I didn't see that!"

And just like that, the moment is gone. She goes quiet and scrambles off him, backing away to put some distance between them – she can feel her walls coming up again, because there's still a part of her that thinks that he's going to leave her; it may be a small part, but it's still there.

He pushes himself off the ground and walks to her – she backs away, but he follows, until she hits the counter and she has nowhere left to go. He bends down a little so he can look her in the eyes. "Don't push me away, GoGo. I'm here for you – you _know _I'm here for you. I'm – I really, really like you," he mumbles as his neck flushes. He reaches out and cups her face. "I'm not going to leave you; give me a chance to prove to you that I won't leave you."

She hesitates, images of the car crash that took her parents and of all the foster parents that took her in for a couple months before dropping her back off at the orphanage, flashing through her mind. But this is _Tadashi_ – Tadashi, who stays up until ungodly hours of the night to watch her work on her bike, who understands her without her having to say anything. Tadashi, who has seen the worst parts of her. And he's still here.

She feels all the tension leave her body as she slumps against his tall frame. "Okay," she mumbles into his chest.

"Okay?" he questions.

"Okay, I'm willing to try this," she clarifies. "Whatever it is that's going on between us."

He lets out a relieved sigh and wraps his arms around her, squeezing her into a tight hug. "Yea?"

"Yes, Tadashi. Stop sounding like you don't believe this is real."

"Okay."

She doesn't say anything else, but she's smiling one of her rare, full smiles, the one that only Honey Lemon has seen, and even then, only a small handful of times. She has a feeling though, that Tadashi will bring that smile out of her very often.

**-x-**

_Day 177_

When they walk into the lab hand-in-hand after spring break, Honey's squeal of delight is enough to break her eardrums. Fred does a ridiculous cheer about their relationship, complete with a couple name that he claims to have made when they first started out as friends, and Wasabi, the most sensible of the three, simply congratulates them and suggests a celebration dinner at the Lucky Cat Café.

**-x-**

Nothing really changes in their relationship – they still hang out with Wasabi and Fred and Honey, they still leave each other coffee and food, they still share those late night lab sessions. She still sits in on his tests with his marshmallow ('_His name is Baymax!_' she can hear his annoyingly persistent voice in the back of her head), and he still likes to sit and watch as she spends immense amounts of time poring over every small detail of her blueprints.

The only difference now is the hand-holding and the kisses, and make-out sessions during their late nights in the lab, in the dead of the night, when everybody else has gone home. Because then – then, when it's just the two of them and she has him to herself, she can spend hours memorizing the planes of his face, the way his skin feels under her hand, the way his heart thuds against his ribcage; she can spend hours memorizing his touch, what it feels like when he runs his hands through her hair, the way shivers run down her spine when he whispers her name, his breath hot against her skin.

And it's times like these, when she's alone with Tadashi, that she feels her walls coming down, the barriers that she built over the years forgotten in the midst of entangled limbs and whispered sweet nothings, and she feels _human_.

**-x-**

_Day 201_

The sound of scuffling and garbled voices pulls GoGo from her peaceful slumber, but she squeezes her eyes shut tighter – she's much too tired to be getting up just yet.

"Do you think we should wake them?"

"No! Oh, why would you want to do that, Wasabi? They look so cute. Hold this, hold this. I'm going to take a picture."

She does, however, jolt awake, when light flashes across her eyelids, to find Honey, Fred and Wasabi standing in front of her. Only then does she realize that _she's not in bed at home _– she's still in Tadashi's lab, where she fell asleep the night before. And then she notices that Honey is holding her cell phone – and given the girl's habit of taking pictures of every small thing, it's probably safe to assume that the phone was the source of the flash.

She elbows Tadashi in the side in an attempt to wake him, but he merely turns his head and buries his face into the crook of her neck. "Five more minutes," he mumbles, his voice muffled.

Honey giggles and GoGo turns a furious shade of red.

"Wake up," she hisses, digging her elbow harder into his side.

He presses a tender kiss to her shoulder before sitting up. "I'm up, I'm up." And then he notices his surroundings. "Oh. Morning," he says weakly, smiling nervously at Honey, Fred and Wasabi. He removes his arm from around her, his cheeks flushing slightly.

Honey giggles again, covering her mouth with her hand. "Oh, you two are _adorable_," she squeals, at the same time that Fred says, "they did _the thing_," in a loud, obnoxious voice.

"_We did not do the thing,"_ Tadashi nearly screams in a high-pitched panicky voice. "We _fell asleep_. _Nothing happened._"

"You guys can't _do_ stuff like that here! It's a lab!" Wasabi sounds horrified, apparently not having heard a thing that Tadashi said.

"_We didn't do anything_!" Tadashi pulls his baseball cap over his eyes to cover his reddening face.

GoGo, already in a surly mood because of her rude awakening, ignores the boys' stupidity and stalks up to Honey Lemon, to get the phone.

"Don't even _think_ about it, GoGo; this picture is too cute. I'm saving it for the yearbook."

"You're _what_?! No, Honey, give me the phone." Her voice is deadly calm, which would have scared almost anybody else, but apparently, Honey Lemon doesn't have a sense for danger, because she simply holds the phone above her head.

GoGo mentally curses her short stature as she stands on her tiptoes to try and reach the phone – she flat-out refuses to attempt the jump-and-swipe technique, because going by experience, it _never_ works. "Honey," she growls, tugging on her oversized cardigan in an attempt to pull the taller girl down to her height.

She glances over at Tadashi to silently plead for his help, but he's still busy trying to talk Fred and Wasabi into believing him that, _no_, they did not do the deed. She exhales loudly in annoyance and returns her attention to Honey, who is still holding her phone stubbornly out of reach.

"But you two are so sweet. The picture is much too precious for me to let you get a hold of it. Who would have thought though?" Honey sighs happily. "You and Tadashi! I mean, I knew you liked him and he liked you, but –" she stops abruptly, which GoGo finds strange, because once Honey starts on one of her spiels, she usually doesn't stop until she's finished.

"_Tadashi!" _Honey's screech nearly shatters her eardrums as she lunges at him. Only then does GoGo notice that Honey Lemon doesn't have her phone anymore – Tadashi does.

"Sorry, Honey. It's bad enough that Fred and Wasabi already think – well, you know. We don't need the whole school thinking it too." He presses a few buttons on Honey's phone (GoGo mentally thanks Honey for being too trusting and not having a passcode on her phone) before handing it back to her.

Honey sighs dejectedly as she laments the loss of her picture the whole way to their first class of the day.

Only much later, when she checks her own phone, does she realize that Tadashi had sent her the picture prior to deleting it off of Honey Lemon's phone (she'll never tell anybody, but she saves the picture).

**-x-**

_Day 311_

"This is Tadashi Hamada and this is the 84th test." He exhales loudly. "What do you say, big guy?"

She watches as he activates his robot _again_. She's already sat through a handful of his tests, none of them successful, but she doesn't mind sitting in anyways. It's interesting to watch the development of the robot, how it improves a little bit every time she sees it. Sometimes she thinks that she's not all that different from the robot. Not in the sense that she herself is a robot, because despite what people may think, she _does_ have feelings. But in the sense that with each passing day together, Tadashi makes her a better person – he changes her for the better with each interaction. He makes her feel whole and at home. So no, she doesn't mind watching him work with his robot.

"Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion."

She can pinpoint the exact moment that he realizes that his project is finally _working_, because his whole face lights up. She watches on in amusement as he does a stupid little victory dance, but she can't deny the sense of pride welling up in her chest.

"Congratulations," she murmurs when she's sure he's finished his test. She gives him a smile. "Looks like months of –"

He cuts her short by pulling her off the table she's sitting on and planting a soft, tender kiss on her lips.

"Somebody's a little trigger-happy," she says, her voice breathless, when he pulls away.

"It works!" he exclaims, a large goofy grin making its way onto his face. "It finally works!" He picks her up, which isn't very hard, considering how much taller he is than her, and spins her around.

She clutches on to his shoulders for dear life, scared that he's going to drop her. "Okay, okay. You're happy, I know, but please put me down before you drop me."

He does as she asks, setting her back down on the table. "It works," he repeats, the awestruck tone never leaving his words. "It really, really works."

His happiness is infectious, though, because she can feel a grin forming on her lips too, and she doesn't try to cover it up – after all, she _is_ happy for him. "You did it," she confirms, although her voice isn't tinged with as much awe as his – she isn't _that_ surprised. He's worked on the thing far longer than she's even been attending the school. For all the times that his project has failed, he hasn't once given up on it – if anybody deserves to have their project fully operational, it's him.

She opens her mouth to suggest that they go celebrate with the rest of the gang, but before the words can leave her mouth, he steps between her legs and leans down to kiss her, effectively cutting her off. This time, the kiss is not as brief or innocent. She whimpers quietly when one of his hand finds its way around her waist, his fingers slipping beneath the hem of her tank top to draw patterns across the small of her back. He pulls away, only to press butterfly kisses across her jaw and neck that make her shudder and her pulse jump as she tilts her head back to give him better access.

"Tada –" she wants to stop him – after all, they _are _in his lab, where any one of their friends could walk in – but her words trail off into a soft moan when he slides her leather jacket off her shoulder and his lips find a particularly sensitive spot. She tugs at his t-shirt and pulls him back up to plant a kiss on his lips, her tongue slipping into his mouth as her lips move against his.

He makes a sound at the back of his throat that makes the heat in her stomach flare, and she tightens her grip on his shirt, drawing him closer still, closing whatever distance is left between them.

He pulls away when her hands slip under his shirt. "Okay," he whispers in a strangled voice, his hands trembling as he gently pulls her hands down. He runs a hand through her short locks before taking a seat on the table next to her, still breathing heavily. "It probably wouldn't be a good idea to keep going, because I don't think I'll be able to stop myself if we do."

She _really _wants to argue, but stops when she remembers that his lab is not an ideal place for anything more than what they were just doing (and she's pretty sure they were already pushing it). Especially not with their friends in the next room and the door unlocked. Still, she's half tempted to forget about everything else, and it takes all of her willpower not to pull him into another heated kiss. Instead, she whispers, "That…that was some congratulatory kiss," as she tries to calm her erratic heartbeat.

He hums contentedly and takes her hand, slipping his fingers between hers.

"Don't you want to go tell the others?" Even as she asks though, she's pulling her legs onto the table and curling comfortably into Tadashi's side.

"Later," he mutters, leaning his head on hers. "Let's just enjoy the peace before letting them decide they want to throw a party or something to congratulate me."

She doesn't say anything – she doesn't need to, because she's pretty sure he can hear her happiness for him in the way that she presses her face into his shoulder, in the way she squeezes his hand, in the way she's willing to _smile_ for him, when she won't for anybody else. And besides, he has a way of understanding her without a need for words.

**-x-**

_Day 350_

"Hey. Who are you?" she demands as she lifts her helmet off her head to stare down at a kid in an oversized blue sweater. He looks vaguely familiar, but – is that Tadashi's _brother_?

"GoGo, this is my brother, Hiro." She can hear the smirk in his voice as he formally introduces his brother to her – the same brother that walked in on them making out in the café's kitchen in the middle of the night – and she has to fight to keep her cheeks from flushing in embarrassment as she wonders if he remembers her as the girl who was straddling his older brother.

She glares daggers at Tadashi over Hiro's head, but he merely gives her an innocent smile. She snaps her gum in annoyance. "Welcome to the nerd lab," she intones, trying not to let her mortification show.

He doesn't seem to remember her though, because he just laughs nervously and says, "Yea," before rambling on about her bike.

She breathes a sigh of relief – she's not sure she wants to explain to him exactly what she and her brother were doing that day; after all, Tadashi's right – he's only just a kid. One day, much later in their relationship, when he's a bit more grown up, they'll tell him. But for now, she's perfectly fine with being referred to as just "my brother's friend".

**-x-**

_Day 358_

"I think my brother has a crush on you," he tells her one day as he's walking her home, after a late night of helping Hiro with his microbots. His voice is filled with humour though, which makes her doubt the validity of the statement (which wasn't very valid in the first place, so now she feels like it's a complete lie).

She punches him in the arm. "Like hell he does."

"Hey!" He takes her hand in his and uncurls her fist so he can slip his fingers between hers. "No, really. He does! It's pretty obvious."

She scoffs. "Then why haven't I noticed anything?"

"Because you're utterly _oblivious_ when it comes to these things. You never knew that _I _liked you either. And I thought I was being pretty obvious about my feelings."

"I wouldn't have noticed anyways – nobody's ever flirted with me before. That's more Honey Lemon's thing. You're the first one to go for the scary biker chick."

"People are just too scared to flirt with you – you'd probably kick them or something."

"Then why did _you_?" She looks down at their linked hands and frowns slightly – would she ever have approached him if he _had_ been scared of her? Probably not – she probably would never have gotten to know him, to love him, the way that she does. Maybe he would have been with Honey Lemon, maybe he would have been with another girl; the jealousy that surges through her at the thought takes her completely by surprise, and she squeezes his hand a little to reassure herself that he's _here_, with her.

He returns the squeeze with a reassuring one of his own. "Hey, I'm not going anywhere, okay? I like you because you're _you _– you know exactly what you want in life and you're not afraid to go for it. You're strong and you don't let anybody mess with you, but at the same time, you're loyal to the bone. You might put up a mask of indifference, but I know you, and I know you care more than you like to let on. _That's_ what I love about you.

"I think my brother just thinks you're cool though – he has this cute kiddie crush on you. _I_ know that you're actually a huge dork, but I'm content to let him think that you're some punk biker chick."

She stops in front of her apartment and wraps her arms around him, burying her face in his chest. "You're such a sap," she mumbles into his t-shirt. But despite her words, she's secretly happy, because _nobody_ has ever said anything so nice about her, not since her parents passed away.

"Yea, but you love me anyways."

"You're such a dork." She hesitates for a second, and then – "But I _do_ love you." She leans up on her tiptoes and plants a lingering kiss on his lips to cover up the embarrassment at her admission.

He tugs at a lock of her hair. "Good night, GoGo. Love you too."

She can't help the smile that makes its way onto her face, especially not when he's looking at her with a dopey smile on _his_ face. "Dork," she murmurs lovingly. She kisses him one more time before entering the apartment.

**-x-**

_Day 365_

She's not usually one for mushy things, but she thinks she can see herself growing old and spending the rest of her life with Tadashi Hamada. It's not something she'd ever thought about before, not really. Because she never thought anybody would ever be interested in an adrenaline junkie tomboy like her, not until _he_ came along and turned her world upside down.

But as she watches helplessly as he runs into the burning building in a futile attempt to save Professor Callaghan, she swears that she sees all her dreams go up in flames.

** -x- **

She should have known better than to believe him when he said he wouldn't leave – everybody who gets close enough eventually leaves, so why should Tadashi be any different? But he doesn't leave, not in the way that she expects him to, at least – he's taken in a blaze of red and orange, and somehow, that hurts so much _more_.

They say that for each year you have known a person, it will take a year's worth of time to accept their death. GoGo wonders if one year will really be enough time to move on.

* * *

**A/N:** I applaud anybody who managed to read the entire thing, because I probably would have given up halfway. And that last line was something I learned in my Social and Behavioural Health class, so if it's wrong, blame my professor, haha.


End file.
